Explosion of chemical symbols

[Alan Lacey]

I’m working on a medical piece and am trying to create a lightbeam hitting a human retina which then results in an explosion of scattered chemical symbols.

I’ve got the retina modeled and now need a cloud of random chemical symbols to be ejected from the impact site. I’m sure Mograph is the answer but not being a big user would really benefit from a bit of guidance. I’m using c4dR13 and also have available AfterEfects (CS5.5) which may be a better way of doing this.

? ideas

With thanks

Alan

FlashXDR,XDcamHD,XDcamEX,D9 etc
FCS,AE,Combustion,LiquidSilver,Vegas,Edius,
G5,MBP,Vista64,XP

[Craig Whitaker]

Simple, but not very elegant way could be to create your symbols, parent them to an Emitter and set your start frame to start emitting when your laser beam makes contact. For the beam, I’d just render a white matte pass and then create the color, glow, etc, in comp. Hope this helps.

Craig Whitaker
Digital Design Director
Assembly
161 Leverington Avenue Suite 1002
Philadelphia, PA 19127
O: 215-487-2060
craig@assemblypix.com

[Brian Jones]

random shapes can be done in TP (whatever the emitter chosen) with a python script that’s in the TP/Presets/Python folder called TP Random Shape Geometry or if you have X-Particles it’s easy there.

[Alan Lacey]

Thanks Craig, that’s about how far I’ve got presently and it’s ‘acceptable’ but can probably be improved on.

I’ll soldier on and try Brian’s approach, although I find TP pretty intimidating to be honest. Brian I don’t really want to have to buy plugins for this.

Thanks once again guys

Alan

FlashXDR,XDcamHD,XDcamEX,D9 etc
FCS,AE,Combustion,LiquidSilver,Vegas,Edius,
G5,MBP,Vista64,XP

[Craig Whitaker]

Hey Alan,

TP is a good way to go and honestly, not that complicated once you wrap your head around the fundamentals of why and what is happening. Feel free to post and scene files you’re working on, I’d be happy to have a look for you.

Best,
Craig

Craig Whitaker
Digital Design Director
Assembly
161 Leverington Avenue Suite 1002
Philadelphia, PA 19127
O: 215-487-2060
craig@assemblypix.com